Larry Abrams, Cherry Hill, founder of BookSmiles, is a champion of literacy working to combat “book deserts” in South Jersey to ensure that underserved children have their personal library at home to help develop good literacy skills. Larry retired from teaching high school English so that he could run BookSmiles full-time. He and his team are on a mission to end book deserts in South Jersey and Delaware Valley. He is a champion of literacy and believes all children should have access to books at home to build literacy skills. Started BookSmiles in 2017, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that collects and distributes gently used books so children can build a library of their own. Partnering with teachers from Philadelphia and NJ, BookSmiles has distributed nearly two millions books and allowed teachers to build their classroom libraries.